Judging by the Steam page, the game was created by brothers who love picking mushrooms and take a lot of photos while doing it. So we decided to transfer our experience into the game.
In my youth, I also loved traveling through forests, but somehow it didn’t work out with mushrooms. We managed to find some toadstools, but I personally never found any good mushrooms. Therefore, it was very interesting to see if it would be possible to put something together and how realistic the forest would be shown.
Choose the appearance of the hero and start the season. This is a period of 100 game days during which you need to score maximum points and unlock game content. There is also a research mode, where you can endlessly run around locations as much as you want, but they won’t give you achievements. So the season started.
You can adjust the length of each day in real time. Purely from personal experience, optimally – an hour. This setting can be changed between race days.
The first race begins immediately on the map, and then we get to our base, there are several significant locations.
In one wing of the building there are photographs taken by the player and various stands with trophies.
The design of this room can be changed to your liking from the collected materials.
In the second wing there is a huge store where you can buy a lot of interesting and useful things for the points you earn. The most expensive and useful lots are transport, shoes (speed up walking and running) and a world map. Prices are stinging. For example, after running for 8 hours I was able to save up about 20% of the price of a world map and less than 50% of the cost of the best boots. In my opinion, rewards for all successful actions should be increased.
Here you can also find a lot of consumables and marks that can be placed on the map in order to better navigate the area in the future.
Outside the building there is an ATV and a horse that you can take for a test drive. Tried it. In principle, there is a benefit; the hero does not move that fast on foot. Sometimes you can’t even examine a map in an hour.
In the center of our base there is a starting point and settings for races, as well as a stand with a daily (meaning game day) task. There’s a little trick here. If the daily task is completed, then in order to pass it you need to run within a certain radius from this very stand with tasks.
When starting the race, we set the location and the length of the day in real time. There are now seven hefty levels. New locations are opened for achievements or purchased for points earned. There is even an underwater world, you will need scuba gear to explore it.
We are dropped off at a certain point in the selected location and then we can do almost anything.
There are only three tasks – collect mushrooms, take pictures of different creatures, look for various special secret objects. But you can just run around the world and admire it. There’s a lot to see here. Full of beautiful views, the game world feels truly alive.
It is clear that each object is not at all unique, there are repetitions of models. The same tree or stump in different places, for example. But there’s a lot of variety here.
Let’s start in order. Mushrooms. https://slotscapitalcasino.co.uk/bonus/ They’re not that easy to find here. Full of trees, bushes, grass. And the fungi are quite small. They are barely visible in this confusion, especially some species.
I suspect that searching for mushrooms would be easier if you turned off beauty in the graphics settings. I didn’t go for it, I decided to admire the graphon, even if it makes the search somewhat difficult.
Collecting one mushroom gives only one point to the piggy bank. They grow in groups of 3-7 pieces in a certain area.
At the same time, mushrooms look super awesome if you take a photo of them. Although this does not give points.
Morels occupy a special place in mushroom hunting. For them our mushroom picker level increases. And also at each location there is always one golden morel. They’ll probably give him a special reward. Never found it.
Apparently this is the developers’ favorite mushroom. The name of the game is dedicated to the morel (Morels), they are also displayed on the base.
The second part of the gameplay is photographing animals. In general, you can photograph a lot of people: animals, insects, birds, all kinds of toads, turtles, fish, and so on. We get points for all of them. If a photo of a creature is taken for the first time, then this is reported.
One animal can be photographed exactly once per race. Then you can also shoot, but without getting points. A new animal is distinguished by a green aura, while one already encountered before has a white aura.
Capturing some of the nimble animals on camera isn’t so easy. For example, some butterfly flying along complex trajectories or a raccoon running away from you through bushes and slopes. But there are also those who are calmer.
You can also take photos of various special objects. There are even seven types of mythical animals, apparently one per location. And also on the list of special items are all sorts of hats, tractor tires, and so on. I even found one bridge in the thicket. If you have any doubts about whether it is worth photographing an object, then it is better to try pointing the camera and see if there is an aura. If yes, then this is it and will give reward points.
The full list of open and not yet found ones can be viewed in the general statistics table based on. I don’t quite understand what exactly the photographer level is for. For new open species or for the total amount of points scored.
The race ends after dark, around 6 p.m.00 in-game time. When it starts to get dark, we are warned with a huge window that fills the entire screen.
From now on, it is better to move closer to the mini-base located at any location. As a rule, this is some kind of small house through which we end the day.
It gets dark in the game abruptly and, in fact, even much worse than it happens in reality. In reality, there is always some kind of appearance. There is the light of the stars, the moon. And then it gets completely dark and sometimes you’re already rushing to the house purely according to the sign on the mini-map.
Between races, when loading a location, you can play squirrel pong. Cool variation of the classic game.
In general, I liked the game. But not without some mistakes.
Sometimes animals are not photographed, although the camera is pointed directly at them at close range.
I really disliked the movement and stamina system.
The hero can barely walk. Very slow. And if he runs, he quickly uses up stamina, which is not restored during the race in the usual way. Only if you eat the appropriate food from the store.
They give out glasses and the cat is crying, but if you spend it on consumables, you won’t be able to buy something you really need any time soon.
When a character is critically tired, the picture becomes black and white and the hero cannot take pictures. You can reduce your stamina to zero even by running around the base.
The game is one of the most unusual on Steam. At the same time, which is very important, it is made at a good quality level. Personally, I got an interesting experience from her exploring large, beautiful locations. This involves strange, but pleasant, activities of collecting mushrooms and photographing all sorts of things.
There are also some bugs that would be nice if they were fixed. But it’s still quite possible to look for mushrooms. I didn’t find any directly game-breaking things.
👍 Good music and sound. Lots of calm melodies or you can leave purely nature sounds. Sounds also play a functional role here. For example, you can find a woodpecker by purely following the sound, or some kind of growling predator.
👍 Seven simply great locations. You can definitely explore each one at least several times and find something new. As far as I understand, between seasons the geography of the location of the mycelium also changes greatly (this is not certain).
👍 There don’t seem to be many activities, but they are addictive. We look at our feet in search of mushrooms. We try to spot the living creatures for photos. The gameplay is very intense.
👍 Good shop for things for points. The clothes themselves are cool. But prices. More about this below.
👍 Russian text language.
😐 The game is to some extent about grinding points from activities. Without this you can’t buy anything in the store. On the one hand – minus. On the other hand, if you play this particular game a lot, then, in principle, this is a plus – there is something to do for a long time.
❌ For some reason some animals are sometimes not photographed. In my opinion, this happens when the dark begins at 18.00. But some animals are photographed anyway. There is some kind of bug.
❌ I didn’t like the stamina system. The hero is very slow from the start. Moreover, endurance runs out quickly and for the entire race. Can be restored with consumables, but see. point about prices in a local store.